What are the regulatory hurdles to operating a lightning node in the US? It makes you a money transmitter, right?
Show HN: Lightning Network Search and Analysis Engine
11–20 of 104 posts
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#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sum of all channels capacity measured in satoshis.
what does capacity mean in that context?
When a user opens a channel it has to lock up some BTC. That is called channel capacity because for payments to be routed through that channel (even other people's payments) that channel at least needs to have the same or more amount of BTC available. If you want to route a bigger payment you need to find a channel with more capacity.
Re: Show HN: Lightning Network Search and Analysis Engine
#13What does "capacity" mean in this context?
Lightning Network seems very confusing. It's unclear to a casual user what "capacity" is and what it means to them. Or what any of this means, really.
I don't think the end user needs to know anything about capacities or other technical details the same way a user doesn't need to know their internet speed.
The end user experience will be having a hot wallet in your computer/phone or online service like coinbase that will handle all the routing, channel setup, etc for you. Like when you use bittorrent you don't need to manually connect to peers, the bittorrent client handles that for you.
Re: Show HN: Lightning Network Search and Analysis Engine
#14What does "capacity" mean in this context?
Alice and Bob each commits $5 to open a channel. The capacity of that channel is $10. They can make as many transactions as they want between them
Re: Show HN: Lightning Network Search and Analysis Engine
#15BCH, it should be noted, has nothing to do with Bitcoin other than appropriating the name...
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#16What are the regulatory hurdles to operating a lightning node in the US? It makes you a money transmitter, right?
I think the same could be said of any bitcoin node.
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#17Re: Show HN: Lightning Network Search and Analysis Engine
#18What are the regulatory hurdles to operating a lightning node in the US? It makes you a money transmitter, right?
You're transmitting cryptocurrency, not fiat. So I'm unsure how it works.
Re: Show HN: Lightning Network Search and Analysis Engine
#19What are the regulatory hurdles to operating a lightning node in the US? It makes you a money transmitter, right?
I think the same could be said of any bitcoin node.
But a regular bitcoin node isn't transferring money. It's simply tracking the state of the network. A lightning node is creating transactions and financial agreements with other nodes in the network.
Re: Show HN: Lightning Network Search and Analysis Engine
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alice and Bob each commits $5 to open a channel. The capacity of that channel is $10. They can make as many transactions as they want between them
Where does the $10 come into play? Can they only transfer up to $10's worth of currency?
From what I understand--yes. They would need to "settle" their transfer on the blockchain and then open a new channel. The solution to this from what I've read is an IOU mechanism and a third party that has a channel with almost everyone. If the third party is rich then each channel is theoretically huge.
ALICE --(IOU to bob for 10k)---> CAROL --(IOU from alice for 10k)--> BOB